CLASS OF 1999 (1990)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

It's interesting to see how much CLASS OF 1999 channels the prosthetic-heavy FX seen in 1984's THE TERMINATOR. In one more year, TERMINATOR 2 would debut some of the most influential CGI ever to shake Hollywood's money coffers. 

I haven't seen director Mark L. Lester's 1982 cult-film CLASS OF 1984 in a while, so I don't know if there are any significant touchstones between that film and CLASS OF 1999, which is set nine years from the period of the film's actual release. But according to C. Courtney Joyner's script, nine years is enough for an institution named "MegaTech" to perfect "military robots" with all sorts of super-scientific tech beneath their human-appearing shells. More on them later.

Very few of the characters in 1999 seem to be aware of such automatons, possibly because society has allowed school gangs to get out of control. One such school is Kennedy High in downtown Seattle, where two major rival gangs, the Razorheads and the Blackhearts, continually attack one another and cause havoc for the people running the school. Though it's not clear why MegaTech isn't still turning out robots for military use, it's implied that the company is moving into a new venue by convincing Kennedy's principal (Malcolm McDowell) to employ robots as teachers able to defend themselves against unruly students. The leader of the project, Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach), maintains a laboratory through which he and his aides monitor the reactions of the robo-teachers as they begin their new jobs.

While all this drama is heating up, Joyner introduces a viewpoint character: former Blackheart gang-member Cody Culp (Bradley Gregg), who's just been released from juvie prison. Cody wants nothing to do with his old gang-life, but his old gang may not agree with his POV. Cody's family is also compromised by their addiction to the drugs peddled by the gangs. On the lighter side, he begins chatting up Christie, a cute girl at school, though there's a downside in that she's the principal's daughter.

It takes Cody a little while to realize that there's something different about Kennedy's three new teachers: Connors (Pam Grier), Hardin (John P. Ryan), and Bryles (Patrick Kilpatrick). Connors and Hardin are able to defend themselves against any attack by any number of gang-punks, but this by itself doesn't get Cody's attention. However, Coach Bryles not only bullies Cody under the pretense of physical education, he also kills a student who draws a gun on him. The principal promotes the "self-defense" rationale for Bryles' crime, but what ends up happening is that all three robots begin to get the idea that they can start treating the students like enemy combatants. After the robots have pulled off several covert murders, Cody figures out the robots' program, and he rallies his old gang to take out the mechanisms in a rousing in-school battle-climax.

There aren't any great depths to this exploitation favorite. Lester and Joyner get a lot of mileage out of the antipathy between students and teachers, with the robots' counter-attack coming off as far more repressive than the activities of the young reprobates. It's just as well that the filmmakers didn't attempt any pretentiousness along the lines of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. That presumption would have shown the creators moving outside the limitations of their own "class."